Is birdsong music? Evaluating harmonic intervals in songs of a Neotropical songbird

► I evaluated whether birdsong elements share the same frequency intervals found in music. ► I examined frequency ratios of adjacent notes in nightingale wren song relative to harmonic intervals. ► Intervals of nightingale wren song were compared to chromatic, major diatonic and major pentatonic musical scales. ► No significant use of harmonic intervals in nightingale wren song was found. ► These results suggest that birdsong is not organized by the same rules used in musical composition.